29. Now You See Her - Cecelia Tishy

Regina Cutter series #1
for: adults
Mysterious Press/Time Warner, 2005
288 pages
3/5

Cecelia Tishy wrote a series of books about Kate Banning, then started in on this series about Regina Cutter. She published this in 2005, then All in One Piece in 2006, but I see nothing from her since. She doesn't seem to have a website and I find no information on her other than her books. A mystery!

Regina Cutter lives in Boston, is recently divorced after many years, has some minor psychic powers, and is trying to follow in her deceased aunt's clairvoyant/do-gooder/interesting friends footsteps. I love the Back Bay and Boston setting. Every character is a little off-the-wall, over-the-top (or it was the mood I was in while reading?), so much of the story seemed inplausible. Lots of coincidences. The Boston police must be pretty stupid if they couldn't figure out what she did, and she took a lot of chances in the middle of the night, which I can't imagine anyone in her position taking. A bit unbelievable.....but not enough to make me put the book aside.

Regina "Reggie" Cutter shares her inherited dog with a Harley-riding softee and is "helping" a Boston police detective by trying to use her (limited) psychic powers to free a wrongly accused black man who has been imprisoned for 13 years. She and that little dog are all over the city, either walking or driving her Beetle. She sticks her nose in everywhere, meets a variety of people by unbelievable coincidence, and gathers amazing clues by brashly being at the right place at the right time with the right excuses. She's one very lucky woman to come out of the whole mess with only a sprained ankle. Crooked politicians, nasty murders, disposing of chemical wastes illegally, your usual assortment of bad guys....and there you have it. The best "character" in the story was Boston itself!